Session 5

 We missed a few sessions so only the one report.

They were asked by Radigast to escort him to Dol Guldor, this journey continued with a larger number of encounters and varied discoveries, basically I had a deck of random events that I worked my way thru and they had to suffer thru.  Not terribly exciting.

The sessions ended with them finally arriving at Dol Guldor.

I was going to have Radigast leave them in camp and go in alone to the fortress. While he was away of course a large group of undead would find them and attack, if things got nasty I was planning for Radigast to return and save the day. Since then however I have had an inspiration.

A vaguely three dimensional diorama of the fortress, with some maps printed for it.  This idea went together with using Dungeoncraft software, a really excellent map making program. With Dungeoncraft I can create a map of the appropriate size in squares/grid, then I can export it to a png with a set number of pixels per square, then I convert it to a PDF, and finally I print the PDF as a poster in Adobe which allows it to use multiple pages and true size.

In the picture you can see 3 different maps I have set up that they will use. Instead of the undead I am going to have to try to rescue Radigast after he is captured, and before the Nazgul comes back (he is away).  The complication will be that once they get to Radigast he will tell them that there are several elves in the dungeon who need to be rescued!

Hooray for the good guys!!  :)

Session 4

 The party are to travel with Radigast to Dol Guldor.  Unfortunately 2 people couldn't make the session, and they were the two main tanks. So we ran one of them anyway just to give the party some hitting power.

For this session I experimented with a version of my Mapping Cards idea (see https://www.flynnkd.com/home/mapping-cards). I put together three decks, one a places deck, one a Monster deck, and the last an Encounter Type deck. This simulated the journey to Dol Goldur, using a set of broadly described locations and events. One of the places they might find was a small dungeon type adventure, which I ran on the table with a tiles set I have.

For the most part it was okay. They didn't get very far into things as the evening felt a little slow (been raining a lot here). They managed to draw the Dungeon card and delved into that, getting to the main boss and obtaining a new set of heavy mail armour as a reward.

Nothing really exciting, maybe I need to throw more challenging stuff at them, it feels like they are cruising. hmmmm.

Session 3

 So the party continued it's slugfest through walls of goblins. They managed to get to a place that allowed a short rest, burned all their HD to recover, and continued. As the emerged into the starlight (daylight would be too easy, goblins don't like daylight), the sound of wolves and goblin drums sounded ominous.

For the next encounter they were presented with a series of natural obstacles that they had to cross via a Athletics or CON check, whilst a series of wolves attacked them from various angles. It was pretty straight forward, but the thing it was meant to highlight was how the group would handle the mix of characters who could pass the tests, compared to those who couldn't.

The rogue and the warriors were easily able to pass the obstacle tests, but the scholar and the warden both had problems. At one point the rogue was two obstacles ahead of the main party and the scholar was left alone at the back. Fortunately the fighters were clearing out most of the wolves as they went along, but it was becoming an issue at one point.

Eventually they regrouped and passed through the obstacles. They travelled onward to Rhosgobel where my lack of reading of the audience rules was highlighted, need to work on that. They got through this and meet with Radigast, who asked them to escort him to Dol Goldur, leaving the very next day. That night a small feast was held by the town for the 'friends of Lord Elrond'.

The journey to Dol Goldur was an attempt to explain to the players the journey mechanic of the game system, only it again highlighted my lack of reading... so we moved on. Part of the problem, from my point of view, was the transition from a purely encounter based system that D&D uses, to the 'Journey' system that AiME uses. I hadn't made the transition fully as I was simply comfortable with the old way.

To that end the party was attacked by spiders, big ones. The encounter was 3 waves of 5 spiders (Attercaps), which proved to be woefully weak compared to the power of the 11th level players, even taking into account that I beefed them up a bit. Need to adjust for that in future.

The session ended with the party making camp near to Dol Guldor. Radigast has told them to remain here whilst he goes in to have a look. He has cast a protective spell around the camp. My plans are for a stranger to burst into their camp, an escapee from the dungeons of Dol Guldor, and he will be followed by a bunch of undead Bog Soldiers and their Masters. If things get dangerous than Radigast will return to save them, if they appear too weak then a bunch of orcs can appear looking for the prisoner, or more Bog Soldiers can arrive.

The things to learn from this session, for me, was that 11th level characters are pretty tough and need good tactics to defeat, not just numbers. Making the encounter challenging for the players, getting a level of tension and maintaining their interest are important. Easy encounters are boring and mostly meaningless, so I need to put a bit more thought into my preparation, and better ambience.  I also need to get the Audience and Journey rules into my mindset a bit better, so I sound like I know what I am doing. The GM flicking through rules and notes trying to work out what to do is not useful to the experience.

Session 2

  I started the session with a change of policy concerning rogues and surprise attacks. For some time I had not been happy with the way we had played with the way rogues can hide and attack, usually every round. This is especially true with hobbits who can hide behind other creatures... hide shoot, hide shoot etc. I had been reading a few articles here and there about it, and recently I found one that had a more reasonable explanation, which is the concept of not only being unseen, but also unknown.

The idea is that just because a rogue hides behind a rock or a corner doesn't mean the viewer doesn't know about them, and when the rogue emerges from cover they are not unseen because they are known and expected.  The gain unknown you have to distract the target or make an effort to remove yourself from their awareness. 

The argument here is not about sneak attacks, they can get that fairly easily. We are talking about having advantage every round. Anyway that is what I explained to my players, and obviously the rogue wasn't too happy, especially as I had been using the very same thing for 3 yrs myself.  My reply here was that me as a player is different from me as a GM. As a player I am after advantage. As a GM I am after balance and fairness, and a touch of reality.

Anyway we moved on, less happy. So tonight I explain that instead of shadowing the main party I have decided to loosen the story to allow me to add in extra stories that might be some distance off the main path. To that end the mission changes from shadow the dwarves to 'go to Rhosgobel and lend aid to Radigast the Brown'. So off to the High Pass they go... and they run into some fighting mountain giants, find a secluded cave, fight a troll then the floor collapses and they fall down into the Goblins world.

For this part of the story I had a pile of tiles they had to work their way along, revealing a new tile as they progressed forward. Each tile would have a number of goblins based on how many squares were on the tile (1 per 2 sqs). These goblins were fairly average orcs (AC14, 25hps), so it was just a issue of crowd control and speed at moving along the tiles. At the start of every round I rolled on a table for random events, which put pressure on the party to be effective or they would get more random events, which were mostly bad... a boss mob etc.

The first few rounds saw some lucky rolls for the orcs and they got in some criticals, plus the scholar was caught out of position initially and took a lot of damage before the rest of the party could tidy things up. This early set back felt like it put pressure on the party because it didn't look like they were going to be able to rest anytime soon.

Eventually a random roll came up that allowed one member of the party to fall down into the darkness and leave the main party. First option went to the hobbit burglar, he took it. I offered Sam an option to follow as the protector but he was in the front line at that moment and decided to stay. So the burglar went on a side mission, fought a big spider and got a magic ring for his trouble. Eventually one other character fell and joined him. The two of them managed to avoid further problems and escaped the mountains. The rest of the party is still making it way through, although they did manage to defeat a boss mob that allowed them to take a short rest.

At one point they rolled a random event that allowed them to see Gandalf and the dwarves smashing their way through the goblin caves, and this gave them all inspiration.

The session seemed to work reasonably well, with pressure on the party at the right times. One thing it did show is just how amazingly tough fighters can be in AiME once they have a few virtues under them. One of the party has a bane vs orcs weapon and vicious trait... he does 1d8+16 to orcs... at level 11 he does that 3 times a round... very nasty. But needed in a game that lacks area of effect magic.

Next week they escape the mountains and travel to Rhosgobel, where Radigast will ask them to escort him to Dol Guldur (the scene where he goes there for the first time in the movie), to discover there is something in the fortress.

Session 1 of AiME.

  So I spent some time going over the idea of the game with the players, that they would be a decoy party trying to help the real party succeed. I emphasised to them that we would follow the books/movies to some degree, but there would be some variances.  Reminded them that there would be situations that maybe pre-determined to some degree... like they will not be killing Smaug, even if they can. Some events and facts are written in stone.

We started off with where they left the last campaign, completing the task they had been doing for Elrond - gather the Regalia of Cardolan. This campaign had been centred around Bree and those characters had progressed to 11 th level. The restart saw them go back to 10th level and a few characters change to fit the story (extra hobbit for Samwise etc).  They left Rivendell and were returning to Bree, deciding to rest on Weathertop along the way. When they climbed to the top they discovered 13 dead dwarves. One of the dwarves was clutching a scroll of parchment. The scroll turned out to be a fresh copy of a map to Erebor (a copy of the Hobbit map, one of the players was able to determine it was probably a copy due to its newness).

The location grew darker, and an ominous feeling overcame them all, Wis saves all around for fear. A Wraith like form appears and demands the map, more fear rolls. The dwarf survived the fear and strikes out at the wraith, hit it. The wraith dissipates in a cloud of fog. The party realises that a fog has suddenly moved around Weathertop, and the sound of clanking weapons and armour can he heard, getting closer.

A party of orcs and goblins appears out of the fog and attacks. Lead by a Great Orc of Gundabad. The party is quite well stocked with archers, so they quickly shoot out all the goblins before the melee gets started. The party is experienced and quickly overcomes the orcs. A funeral pyre is created for the dead. Remains of the dwarves are collected and returned to the Blue Mountains via indirect means (the players didn't loot it).

The next day they complete their journey to Bree. Here they ask if anyone knows anything about the dwarf party. It is discovered that they came through 2 days ago, but more interesting was that another party of 13 dwarves and a hobbit came through just under 2 weeks back, heading east. The hobbit is identified as a Mr Baggins, one of the hobbit characters vaguely knows him.

They decide to follow up what they have learned and setup a journey back to Rivendell, possibly to ask Glorfindel about the map (two of the players have him as a Patron). The journey to Rivendell results in two encounters. The first is with a party of 4 trolls, they detect three of the trolls in a wood, and realise there is a fourth somewhere. Skilled members of the party go out to find the missing troll while the rest hide. They find him suddenly and a melee begins, the trolls shouts for help. The Bard, back with the rest of the party, rolls a 20 on an attempt to mimic the trolls cry and distract the other 3 trolls, so it works. The single troll is defeated quickly. The bard and the other three trolls stumble around the forrest for 2 turns before he rolls poorly and is trapped. They rest of the players arrive to help, the other group returns, and the Loremaster gets totally lost in the woods, but is found later. The trolls are defeated.

They search and find a trail to a cave, find treasure (a longsword, a shortsword and 20 elf arrows, and a shadow point).

The second encounter was an experiment. I set up a large table area of different terrains, replicating the warg hunt in the movie (but no Radigast). They had to use the terrain to try to avoid the wolves and get to the far side and the safety of Rivendell. In one spot they find a tunnel which allows them to bypass a section of the map area and get behind the wargs, making it to safety... lots of group stealth rolls etc. The party turned out to be pretty stealthy.

They get to Rivendell, to find that the 13 dwarves and the hobbit had been there, but had left 2 days prior. Glorfindel listens to their story and asks them to wait whilst he consults with Elrond. Elrond summons them to a Council. Here he asks them to undertake a dangerous mission, he wants them to act as a decoy group for the main group. Travelling the path they are travelling and attempting to intercept any problems in an attempt to make it easier for them. The mechanic would be that both parties would generate encounters for their journey, but the players would then try to suck up one or two of the other parties encounters. (eg Rivendell to Beorn's House would result in 2 encounters for each party, the player party would try to intercept one of the encounters so the split would be 3 for them and only 1 for the real dwarves). Elrond promises that they will be rewarded with a single share of the quest (a 15th), and other unspecified rewards from powerful people.  They have no choice in the matter of course.

Glorfindel gives them some minor gifts, lembas and herbs and elf cordials, and an impressive elf scarf of incredible beauty. They head out into the High Pass...

Covid delay...not really, cricket!

  We suffered a delay starting the game, but with luck things will begin in 4 days. I hope to do a post after each game session talking about how things went.

I have been reading up on the AiME books to try to absorb background and adapt it to the story we will be building.  For now we are going ahead with the player group (built on the structure of the Fellowship) playing as a decoy team for Bilbo. The first adventure being the destruction of another decoy team by a RingWraith, and the players taking up the mantle at the behest of Elrond and Glorfindel.

Plotting out The Hobbit story line is fairly easy, thanks to a book and three movies. The same applies to The Lord of the Rings. What I have found is that the 70 years between those two stories needs to be filled. I was pleasantly surprised with the way The Mirkwood Campaign book treated this. Single main adventures for each year with events occurring around the adventure. What I really liked from this, as I was trying to absorb all of it, was the inter-connections of all the events, and how they are scattered all around the Mirkwood area. But more especially the npc characters running through-out the story, how some of them can grow, some die, some change etc over the 30 years of this book (it doesn't cover the full 70 years sadly). On top of that are the options for the players to grow as well, including passing their characters on to sons or daughters in the case of humans with shorter life spans (and there is only two of those in the party).

I'm very enthusiastic about the whole thing, but I am sure my players will put a stop to that soon enough.  :)

Re-start

 Well it looks like my old blogspace got out of date, or something. On to the new.

No, its working again, so back to the old....

So I was playing an AiME (Adventures in Middle Earth rpg) game over a year ago, and it was very good.  We stopped that because I was waiting for a specific book in the series to come out (Moria) and also I was excited about a new campaign book I had purchased thru a Kickstarter - Odyssey of the DragonLords. This was a classical greek setting, which is a subject area I really like (along with Egyptian). By the end of last year (2020) I was growing tired of that game, so it was great that christmas and new year gave us a break.

During the break I had a great idea. Lets return to AiME and lets run the game as if the players were the Fellowship of the Ring, or at least a parallel copy of them. Then I watched The Hobbit movies and wanted to include that story in the sequence as well. Sadly there is a gap of over 50 years between the two stories, but what's the point of fantasy role playing if you can't shove in a bit of fantasy in there. Besides all the races except humans live quite long lives, and even the humans (dunedain) can live to be quite old. Also, the AiME game system itself is sort of supportive of longer styles of game time passage, suggesting one major adventure per game year.

So I got into it. I have six players, and can play a character of my own, which makes 7, the fellowship was 9. So we demote Merry and Pippin to npcs (non-player characters). That works. And the character I play (as the GM), can be the wizard (Gandalf) equivalent, and can pop in and out, just like Gandalf does.  To that end I came up with:

Gandalf - Loremaster.

Aragorn - Warden/Herald.

Legolas - Wanderer/Hunter of Shadows

Gimli - Slayer/Foe Hammer

Frodo - Burgler

Samwise - Warrior/Knight

Boromir - Warrior/WeaponMaster

To a small degree there is some contriving in these choices. I wanted to use as many of the AiME character classes as possible, and I wanted them to sort of fit the role of the story characters as much as possible. The choice of Knight for Samwise for example fits the devoted follower and friend of Frodo, which a lot of the Knight abilities sync to. It will mean that Sam will end up running around in heavy armour, and that lead to an extra layer.

Instead of the characters being the exact Fellowship, they will mirror them. Not exactly, but the same similar events will occur, plus some extra ones. So if this group of players are not the band of dwarves/fellowship, but they are going to do most everything they did and be in most of the same places... then obviously they are a decoy group!  Which explains why the Fellowship had it so easy (sic), because the decoy group were taking on all the nasty stuff.

Even the parts that a locked into the cannon of the story, that 13 dwarves could defeat Smaug, that's because it was actually 13 dwarves and 7 others.

The opening scene of this new adventure will be the 7 players running into a battle scene where 13 dwarves have been slain (yet another decoy group, but a less successful one). A Nazgul (weak early version) demands they hand over The Map (what map? the one they found on the dead dwarf), the players resist and chase the nazgul off but are then attacked by some orcs... etc.They now have a map, actually a copy, and will need guidance on what has happened, so off the Rivendell they go.

And so it begins, they Journey to Rivendell. Along the way they run into a band of Trolls, a different band, then some wargs and goblins. At Rivendell they are asked to take on the decoy role formally by Elrond, and then head off for Erebor.

The gap between The Hobbit and the LotR can easily be filled with a few other major adventures, like the Green Dragon of Mirkwood, or a journey north into the Grey Mountains etc.

TBC...